Sam Bourne - The Last Testament

She stood like that for seconds that stretched into long minutes, her eyes closed so that she could concentrate on her ears. In the seconds after the gunshot, as she played back the memory of it now, she had heard a thud and the sound of footsteps on the gravel above. Then, a minute later, car doors slamming shut and an engine roaring away.

She had prayed then, as she prayed now, that she would soon hear something else: his footsteps coming towards her perhaps, or his voice calling out from the road above. The voice in her head was addressing God, the Father she claimed no longer to believe in, the God she had officially abandoned at convent school. She begged him, please, please, whatever else you do to me, don’t let him be dead. Please, God, let him live.

How could she have allowed him to do that, letting her get away first? How could she have been so stupid, so selfish? Of course, there was no plan. Uri had simply wanted to save her life: she would get out of the car and away, he would provide the cover for her escape. The pursuers would aim their guns at him, while she crept away, saving her own skin. She pictured his body, unmoving and bloody, on the gravelled road, and her own body convulsed at the thought of it. She knew she had to keep quiet, but it was no good: she was sobbing noisily now, for the man whom she had held in her arms, pulsing with life, just a few hours ago. She had held him and now she had lost him.

Still she did not move. Her survival instinct compelled her to stay here, on this ledge invisible from the road. She feared a trick: what if she climbed back up only to be ambushed by the men who had shot Uri? Maybe she had imagined the sound of a car departing; she was so tired, her head felt light. So she just stood where she was, her face soaking from the tears that were now streaming down it.

Eventually, she took one step forward, wincing against any sound she might make. Then another, then another, until she had a view, albeit restricted, of the road above. She could see nothing.

She took another few paces until she was at the edge of the ledge. Below her was the craggy, beige rock of the hillside. If anyone was on the road, they would surely be able to see her here. But she could see nothing-until a white car sped by. She ducked and it went on.

Silence. After a while she bobbed up and looked around. There was nothing on the road, nothing at the lookout spot. No cars, not even the Mercedes they had been driving. Above all, there was no Uri.

Maggie didn’t know what to feel. She exhaled her relief that there was no corpse. Was it possible that Uri had somehow escaped, that the sound she had heard had been Uri, driving himself to safety?

But that, she knew, made no sense. He would have come back to get her. She knew what was more likely, her mind supplying the image: masked men picking up Uri’s lifeless body, one taking the arms, the other the ankles, and swinging it into the boot of the Merc, then driving the car away.

She walked up onto the lookout spot and examined the ground. She could see tyre marks, but it was no good. She was no detective; she didn’t know what she was looking at.

Maggie turned her back to the road, only now noticing the beauty of this view. The sky was a pale morning blue, the sun strong enough to light up this brittle, sandy landscape: the hills, stepped in terraces, punctuated by isolated olive trees. Hardy, unfussy, somehow stubborn, these trees seemed to Maggie like short, tanned men: tough and impatient.

Something in that view hardened her resolve. She would find that goddamned tablet if it was the last thing she did. She would do it for Uri’s sake, and for the sake of his father and mother too. Whoever had done this to him, and to his parents, would not be allowed to get away with it. She would thwart them; she would find what they did not want her to find and she would expose them while she was at it. Yes, this peace process needed saving and yes, she was desperate to clear her name. But, at this moment, both of those feelings receded. She would do this for Uri.

And then she heard it, faint at first. She was struck, as she had been the first time, by the beauty of the melody, a haunting series of notes. And now it was a little louder, she could hear that it was not a recording or a car radio, but human voices singing, their sound carried on the breeze. She walked down to the edge of the ledge and saw that there was still no sheer drop, but rather a downward slope. She would have to make an initial jump of a few feet, and then she would just have to negotiate the hillside.

She did it, thanking Orli for the boots she was now wearing instead of the shoes she had left at the ex-girlfriend’s apartment. Still, though, she was not equipped for this. As she pushed towards the sound of the voices, her right foot slipped from under her, so that she landed on an ankle. A few paces later, she scratched her arm on a thistle, as she unthinkingly grabbed at the air to steady herself.

But soon she had threaded her way down from the road and had flat ground in view. And she could see the source of the song, though now it had given way to a much coarser chorus, a kind of football chant, to be sung by a crowd swaying in unison.

Hinei ma’tov u’ma’naim, shevet achim gam yachad…

It was the Arms Around Jerusalem protest, still going strong. Maggie had never been so glad to see a political demonstration in her life, never more grateful for the protesters’ stamina in maintaining it around the clock, just as they had promised. Even now, not much after dawn, there was a group of activists, holding hands at the foot of this hill. Why they had decided this particular spot constituted the proper boundary of Jerusalem, she had no idea. But she was relieved they had.

‘Are you journalist?’ It was a woman wearing a vast pair of glasses, her arms extended to a teenage girl, perhaps her daughter, on one side and a rabbinic-looking man, Maggie’s age, the fringes of his prayer shawl dangling, on the other.

‘Oh no,’ said Maggie, immediately and without forethought, exaggerating her Irish accent. ‘I’m a visitor.’

‘What, tourist?’ Turrrist .

‘Not quite, dear. I’m more of a pilgrim.’ It was blatant, an impersonation of the nuns at school. But Maggie prayed it would work.

‘Ah, you want Bethlehem?’ The woman looked incredulous. ‘You walking to Bethlehem?’

‘Oh, no dear, perish the thought!’

Now the rabbi had stopped singing and was joining in the conversation. ‘You need to get to Bethlehem?’ He positioned himself to give directions.

‘No, actually, I’m on my way to Jerusalem. And it seems I’ve been tricked, I’m afraid.’

‘Tricked?’

‘By a taxi. Said he would take me there. He dropped me on the roadside there-’ she pointed up the hill she had just descended, ‘-he said I should enjoy the view. Then, would you credit it, he only offs and leaves. With my coat and everything.’

‘He was Jewish, this driver?’

Maggie was stumped. What was the right answer? Would it be an insult to accuse a Jew of this act of perfidy? Or would it be seen as a greater treachery to have hired a Palestinian driver in the first place?

‘You know, I never asked him. But I do feel as if I’ve been terribly naive. I thought, this being the Holy Land and all-’

‘Listen, lady.’ It was the rabbi, now broken out of his place in the circle. ‘Where do you need to get to?’

‘Oh, I don’t want to trouble a man of God like yourself.’

‘No trouble, really. We have a driver.’ And before she had had a chance to say another word, he had produced a walkie-talkie. ‘Avram? Bo rega .’ He looked at Maggie, briefly closing his eyes in a nod, as if to say, don’t worry, it’s all under control.